Rebooting a BlackBerry - something we hate doing yet something we (unfortunately) need to do. Battery pulls, "soft reset" or whatever you want to call it, it has to be done. Historically our devices have taken nothing short of an eternity to reboot, pushing toward 10 minutes in some instances just to get up and running. Well with the new BlackBerry Torch 9800 a welcome relief comes as the improved boot time which is roughly 2 minutes. Finally we don't have to fret pulling the battery - which is few and far between on this device as it is.

Check out the video above (I didn't edit it down at all so we get the full effect of how painful a reboot is - it's kind of long and boring in the middle so feel free to skip ahead) for a head to head comparision of the Bold 9700 (OS 5.0.0.586), Bold 9650 (OS 5.0.0.732) and Torch 9800 (OS 6.0.0.141). Each of them is loaded up with nearly the same apps and data (messages, contacts, calendar etc) to make things as close as possible. The video is kind of long as I left it run through the whole boot process, so you can skip ahead if you want to just see the meat of it. The Torch boots up in around 2m 20s (at 3:17 in the video), the Bold 9650 takes a not-so-close second at 6m 40s (at 7:40 in the video) with the Bold 9700 bringing up the rear with a boot time of 9m 15s (at 10:33 in the video). Now keep in mind this isn't exact, but its a pretty good show of how long each device takes to boot up. This will totally vary depending on your data, apps etc as each device is specific to its owner, but we tried our best to do a decent comparison. Regardless it is totally obvious here that the Torch with BB6 is way faster (RIM did tell Kevin they improved the boot time considerably) than older devices. Your mission for today is to do your own boot test and drop a comment with your device/OS/boot time. Lets see who has the best and who has the worst!

Reader comments

I have a blackberry bold 9700 with at&t and want to remove thire provisoning so that i can take it to another company and provision it with them dose any one know how to do it ro direct me to some one that can?!!!!... anyones help would be greatly aperciated greatly!....

Both times I left the battery out for about 30 seconds. Obviously the data and everything is the same both times. Generally speaking I do a soft reset with the left alt combination, but these times I did complete battery pulls. I guess it really doesn't make any difference about the uptime. Always seemed like it did, though.

Now, maybe this is just my personal experience, but I find boot time is directly related to how often. Seems like the longer I go without rebooting my phone (anywhere from a couple days to a week or more) the longer it takes to reboot.

My 9700 running 5.0.0.423 on Bell takes in the realm of 15 minute to boot up to the point it's usable. It's BES activated, has a 2G SD card, has 114M free with memory compression enabled. (Disabling it didn't help.)

And it still takes me upwards of 7 minutes to turn on, after a battery pull. About 90 seconds of that 7 minutes, is from the final "security verification" screen - seemingly an awful long time! After battery pull, I have about 27mb of memory.

My bold 9700 took 5:28 I have around 50 installed apps, I only have 36.4Mb left in app memory. My encryption is off. My time went up by 5 minuets with full encryption, including memory card (4Gb, 2Gb used). Also I do not delete text messages and I use about 3-4k a month and have had my phone since it came out. I am running 5.0.0.602 on att.

Bold 9700 on TMo running Os 5.0.0.862.
Deleted all my msgs, call history, and browser cache/history etc... Took 8 minutes and 11 seconds to boot up from red LED to 100% security software check. Way too long, if u ask me. My memory went up from 77 Mb to 85.

Tryed this a couple of times, first time took 3:45 the second time it took 3:55.
I have a fair amount of apps(62mb left), 2 emails and far too many txt messages running an old O/S 5.0.0.421
10mins is just mad, i couldn't live with that.

well folks one thing that the Storm1 can do better than your phone is boot up time! I have 20 mb free and it only takes my phone 2 minutes and 5 seconds to boot! And thats with the newest O.S 5.0.0.797!

after reading this article and putting my Verizon 9630 to the test, I realized slow is giving my phone too much credit. After over 10 minutes, the load bar is about 60-65% loaded. I will comment again when it is done. EDIT: I think my phone froze because its been 15 minutes, and its still at 60-65%....

Oddly enough I had just reset my 9550 about a minute before watching this video and the 9800 beat it by like 20 secs. Thats a big ups to me. But being I never had a 9700 but have family members who do, I never reset one and I am quite surprised how long that took. BTW my 9550 has encryption on and security.

Oddly enough I had just reset my 9550 about a minute before watching this video and the 9800 beat it by like 20 secs. Thats a big ups to me. But being I never had a 9700 but have family members who do, I never reset one and I am quite surprised how long that took. BTW my 9550 has encryption on and security.

Our Bold 9000 running the latest hybrid beat the Torch, by a solid 20-30 seconds. Another 9000 running the next-to-latest version of the hybrid was just as fast as the Torch. The Torch beat the 2nd Bold to the AT&T splash screen, but the Bold caught up and they finished verifying the security settings at the same time.

My battery pull time on my 9650 is about 7 minutes. The big difference is with my previous Tour I would lose memory and have to reset every 24-48 hours or the unit would start to lag. With my 9650, I often go 2 WEEKS without resetting because I lose zero memory and have no problems. I look forward to BB6 reducing reboot time as I sometimes change batteries on the fly.

I don't know guys, but in my opinion the test should had been with all devices running the same OS, or all devices running as they come from factory. That way you could messure how well the hardware handles the software, otherwise there are too many factors that varies from one device to the other.

Besides, I don't understand how a Bold 9700 takes almost 10 minutes to boot up. I own a 8900, running OS 5.0.0.592, with a lot of apps on it (since I've been doing some testing), and it does even take the 6 minutes that the Bold 9650 took.

After reading the posts it seems as though some devices just plain boot faster than others no matter what model. I bet if Adam were to redo this test using different phones of the same models he would get different results. I wonder why that is though?

I had two Storm 1's that booted in just over two minutes. One was consistently 2:09 and the other 2:33 no matter what OS. The one that took 2:33 had plenty of apps and data on it, the 2:09 was just factory stuff. So, it is possible for the older berrys to boot in the two minute range.

However, my Storm2 9550 is a turtle. It takes about seven minutes to boot. I usually fall asleep while I'm waiting for it...lol! On the bright side, the only time I reboot it is with app updates and such, except for maybe two times that were due to issues.

Don't know about the ability to re-compile info in BB6 on Torch, but like everything else surrounding Torch and 6, I imagine it is a marginal upgrade. Just enough to get noticed but not near enough to make anyone think you actually had a modern smartphone. Just think if the Torch had the hardware of the incredible, galaxy, X, or D2. 1ghz cpu, 512 RAM and 8 megs dedicated to aplication/media storage. Bat pull restart would be half complete by the time you got the cover back on.

from battery pull to main menu, my bold 9700 took 3:48 to start up. Im using build 5.0.0.862 with 94.2MB free space of application memory. This is with thousands of sms and emails, and lookout mobile security and bebuzz on startup

When I first got the tour it only took about 3-4 minutes. The more apps I put on the longer it takes. Have about 14 apps now with about 80 meg of free space after a battery pull. Now it takes about 10 to 12 mintues now. Never timed it to know exactly.

9700/5.0.0.862/5m37s
14 third party apps.
4 Beta Zone apps from RIM
3 email accounts
using a third party theme as well.

and further more, I've shrunk my OS to about half (53.84MB) using 'Shrink-A-OS' before that it SEEMED to take longer, but i have no data to back that up. 5 minutes doesn't seem so bad considering my older BB's... 7105t would take like 20+ mins!!! LOL!

My 9650 with .810 took 8:10 to boot. I have a lot of messages and apps on mine. I can't imagine it taking more than that ever. It used to boot in about 4-5 minutes (when I first got it) but is bogged down big time now.

Perhaps all the haters of the world should note that Adam noted that the 9700 was running 586 - let's move beyond why he's using an OS version pre-historic man used and keep in mind 586 was a CRAP build.

I can remember wanting to take my 9700 back to the store for a refund when I had some of those 5xx builds. One time I drove from my house to Burger King drive thru and back before that crap 9700 finished rebooting.

For people to bitch and complain "I'm running 862 with this and that and these many emails and yada yada yada" perhaps need to get a life.

Yeah, something must be afoot here Adam. My 9700 was about 30 seconds slower than the 9800. And that's with quite a few 3rd party apps, and four email accounts.

I'm thinking for a proper test, you need to install the latest OS available for each platform platform, and only have the default apps, no 3rd party. Might also be a good test if all the SIMs were for the same carrier too. Only mention that because Kevin mentioned in a tweet that his 9800 didn't seem to last as long on Rogers.

Only 90 seconds on the 9000 running 5.0.0.822. Don't tell me the Torch will be a downgrade in terms of restart time! Then again, I generally only reboot the 9000 because its skimpy app memory has dwindled down too far.

Well I just did the same as another person here on my 9700, I reset the video and did a battery pull at the same time, my OS is .862 running 8 heavy apps, a ton of email, calendar entries, a bunch of non ended BBM convos going and my time was just under 4min. And my BELL splash screen doesn't stay on near as long as the T-Mobile one here. My BELL one pops on for 3sec. So I've always been pretty happy with my 9700 boot time. Would have been more informative what OS's Adam had going there. All in all something is off there.

For everyone that is saying " Oh my device loads so much faster ".... what you're failing to realize is that there are multiple 3rd party apps on each phone. The maker of the video doesn't say which or how many so you cannot compare your device boot time vs his as it will be different due to the apps and such.

Buy a torch, load it up with what you have on your current BB and then boot them up at the same time and the torch will probably kick your old bbs' ass.

You obviously didn't understand what he was saying then... He was saying the test wasn't accurate because the 9700 and 9650 had been heavily used. The only way to accurately get test results for this would be to have 3 Brand new, never used, phones

iPhone boots up much faster than any of the BBs I've seen and used. My storm used to take more than five minutes to boot up, but my iPhone 4 takes a minute or two at most. I'm still a blackberry guy at heart, I'm just playing with the iPhone 4 until the 9800 comes out :)

No, it doesn't. Those OS's may do less battery pulls, or none at all, but i tell you what, they have a boot time. I had the chance to work with a Galaxy S over the weekend and although the screen may come on fast it took about 3m 30s for the device to be usable, and another 1m for the network to come, and another 1m30s for the wi-fi to register. They don't talk about it because heaven forbid they have the same issues as a 'Blackberry'.... At least we're honest with our devices and discuss these issues.

Once I saw what was going on, I backed my video up to where Adam pushed the batteries in. I put my battery in my 9700 at the same time as he puts his in. Mine finished only 10 seconds after the Torch. I have 21 3rd party apps.

Was stating that the test results are inaccurate to the general 9700 owner's reboot time. Of course Adam's old phone filled with texts, emails, apps, and other data is going to be slower than a new one.

I'm am willing to be that the 9800 does not have encryption & security turned on. That adds an extra 3mins to the boot time. For that test to work all devices have to have the same configure with security. redo the test with security & encryption turned on for all 3 devices. Then do it again with all the security off. my 9700 boot in 2min 50sec with the security and encryption turned off.

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